Designing wiring assemblies for vehicles and other complex systems is a very difficult undertaking. Even a reasonably simple automobile has dozens of interconnected electrical subsystems, each of which may involve dozens of wires interconnecting sensors at various points in the engine with monitoring and control modules. The wiring assemblies must be suited to meet their objectives: there must be enough individual connectors, individual wires have to have sufficient length between connections, wires must have the performance capability to communicate signals or handle sufficient loads, and other characteristics.
In the case of larger and more complex systems, such as an aircraft, the concerns are greater. Today's aircraft tend to replace mechanical or hydraulic systems with electrical systems, resulting in more complex wiring systems. At the same time, additional electrical systems are used in contemporary aircraft which further multiply the number and complexity of wiring systems. To make design and fabrication of such craft feasible, the aircraft is subdivided into areas or zones. By developing one zone at a time, the huge engineering task of creating a sophisticated aircraft can be rendered manageable. To interconnect electrical subsystems within each zone, three-dimensional wiring harness installation (WHI) models are completed for each zone of the aircraft.
WHI models suitably provide for the interconnection of electrical subsystems within each zone and open connections for subsystems in zones throughout the aircraft. Wiring harness assemblies (WHA) must be fabricated according to the WHI models to interconnect subsystems throughout the aircraft. However, WHI models do not generate the design of WHAs needed to interconnect subsystems between different zones of the aircraft. Unfortunately, to provide for the eventual interconnection of the subsystems, generalized wiring harnesses are installed throughout the aircraft to—hopefully—accommodate interconnection of the subsystems between zones.
By analogy, installing such generalized wiring harnesses and then using them to interconnect the subsystems as they are designed and installed is like wiring a house without knowing what types of outlets and capacities would be needed in each room. Testing the circuits could be compared with flipping circuit breakers in the basement of the symbolic house and hoping that the lights would come on in the correct rooms of the house. If there were to be a problem, with the wiring in the symbolic house, the wiring would have to be removed and new wiring installed. By installing wiring harnesses to attempt to anticipate the development of the subsystems in the different zones in an aircraft, the possibility of error, cumbersomeness of testing, and ordeal of making changes is comparable to such an ill-conceived speculative wiring of the house.
Proper creation of each WHA would require access to accurate, current centerline data from numerous different WHI models. Conventionally, this is a manual process. To create a WHA, the WHA designer first determines which WHI models are needed then combine the centerline data from the identified WHI models into a single WHA model. The WHA model is then delivered to a fabrication group that derives the wiring-related data elements needed to create the WHA and create the unique as-fabricated depiction of the WHA commonly referred to as a formboard, jigboard, or nailboard. The formboard is used to actually create the WHA.
Because creation of the WHA model depends on completion of the WHI models, creation of the WHA models typically occurs at the end of the overall system design cycle. Because fabrication of the formboard to create the WHAs necessarily follows whatever time is needed to create the WHA models, creation of the WHA model can result in a delay of the entire project.
Thus, there is an unmet need in the art for improving the labor-intensive process of determining which WHI models are of interest, creating the WHA model, preparing the data elements, and creating the WHA formboard.